Guitar Hero 3 coming to a console,pc, and even a mac near you soon.

Well, 2 stories in 1 day, not horrible, I just was browsing some articles and found out that Guitar Hero 3 isn’t the far away, and this time around it’s universal, even including Mac in systems it’s coming out for.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 version is just Guitar Hero III, while the Wii and PC/MAC version is Guitar Hero Legends of Rock. I’m not sure if there are any differences that would really affect gameplay, but I do find it odd they renamed the title, hopefully it doesn’t end up like Tony Hawk’s DownHill Jam, which really was FAR away from the traditional concept of gameplay…

Well, the main reason I’m actually writing this is because of the fact the requirements for the Computer Versions are so high, here’s a list from the Aspyr Site. (link)

Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock
Platforms: Mac/PC
Genre: Strategy/Simulation
ESRB: Teen
Mac Release Date: Fall 2007
PC Release Date: Fall 2007

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

• Operating System: Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista
• CPU Processor: Intel Pentium D (Dual Core) 2.8GHZ or AMD Athlon 64 3500+
• Memory: XP - 1 GB RAM, Vista – 2GB RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 5.1 GB + 1GB Swap File
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
• Video Card: 3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required – 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible 128 MB Video Memory
• Video Card (ATI): Radeon X800
• Video Card (Nvidia): Geforce 7600
• Media Required: 4X DVD-ROM drive
• Windows XP/Vista compatible mouse and keyboard with latest drivers
• Guitar Hero 3 Official PC Guitar Controller

This product does not support Windows 98/ME/2000/NT/XP x64/Vista x64.

MULTIPLAYER REQUIREMENTS:

• Internet(TCP/IP) play supported
• Internet play requires a broadband connection

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHZ or AMD Athlon Dual Core 4400+
• 256 MB 3D Hardware Accelerator Card
• Video Card (ATI): Radeon HD 2600
• Video Card (Nvidia): Geforce 8800 GT
• 2 GB RAM

Now in my opinion, that’s steep for a computer game as simple as Guitar Hero, I mean honestly, it looks like they didn’t do a single bit of optimization, and on top of that, many of the newer titles releasing for the PC including Crysis which has outstanding looks, yet I believe that GH3 has higher requirements than it, odd.

As you can see, Crysis on the right looks a lot better, yet it’s easier to run?

Ah well, personally, I’m adding this title to my Wii Library to hold me over till Super Smash Brothers Brawl comes out, which of course was delayed again.

The Wii version comes out later this month on October 27th at 80-90 dollars, which with all the stuff inside, which shouldn’t be that bad, but we’ll see.

I’ll cover more when I get my copy and have a good hands on experience.

Leopard Is Almost Here And So are 3rd Party Apps!

Well, something I’ve been waiting for for a while is coming out Friday, and by now, you’ve probably heard it in the news or on any podcast related to Apple (including some Windows ones as well).

Leopard is upon us indeed, and with it over 300 features Apple is boasting about.

Now the question is, is all the hype worth it in the end?

For the regular user, I’ll say there’s probably going to be a few that help out, document coverflow and timemachine being 2 of them that will help browse files and even retrieve older versions of anything through a syltish interface.

The main impact is going to be what tools and features developers have now, including optimization for dual core macs, which is what most people have these days, and opengl being faster.

So I predict (as well as many others) that in the future, even if you don’t use features in Leopard, you’ll have an impact on what applications can do and how much faster and more useful they’ll be.

So bottom line, this is a evolutionary update for OSX, not a revolutionary update, which just means it’s a upgrade.

Now, onto the 3rd Party apps, what iphone users and itouch users alike have wanted since their gadget has been released.

Of course recently (soon after the iphone was released actually) you could do what is called a jailbreak on your device, or gain root access and add third party applications, and actually unlock the device on the iphone to work with carriers that are decent or at least in your area (I hear ya Canada, it’s a shame Rogers is about all you have).

But of course with the udpate of 1.1.1 the third party apps were wiped out along with beginning to brick phones that were unlocked, which is a whole other discussion all together. Anyway, this means that you can’t have third party if you want 1.1.1, well, till recently when 1.1.1 was jailbroken through a flaw in the mobile safari with TIFF images that caused the browser to crash and give the user temporary root access.

But not to worry, Apple has answered the call of the users finally and announced that in Febuary of ‘08 the official iPhone (and hopefully iPod Touch) SDK will be released, but that means that it’ll be till May probably before any good type Apps are released.

The Apps will probably be sold through the iTunes store, and hopefully provide a podcast like experience with users being able to give away apps if they want, but hey, if it’s useful, or allows me to say, buy Mail and Google Maps for my itouch, then I’ll be happy, maybe 1.99 or .99 cents a download just like songs wouldn’t be bad considering the price of smartphone software, etc.